Route 66 in the News
Motel Demolished in Flagstaff
2005-05-29 09:23:03
As the building came down, John Connolly breathed a sigh of relief. The blighted Paradise Motel on East Route 66 had been red-flagged by every cop in town and was hurting business at his Salsa Brava restaurant next door, said Connolly, the restaurant's owner.
"We referred to it as 'The Parasite,'" he said as he gazed from the dining room window of his Mexican restaurant to what is now a dirt pad used as extra parking during the lunch rush. "I don't need this much space for Salsa Brava, but I was seriously sick of looking at that building."
Removing the worn-down building not only improves the area's aesthetics, but opens prime commercial real-estate. It's a move that ties in well with the city of Flagstaff's infill development strategy, a new trend intended to reduce urban sprawl.
As Flagstaff property values soar in the face of a shrinking land inventory, it's a fate many of the historic Route 66 motels may see, Connolly said.
"You're going to see a flat-out need because there is no more space and property values are going up."
For Connolly, removing the building enables him to implement his new business strategy to consolidate and improve Salsa Brava's overall service, food and atmosphere.
"If you don't change, you may as well dig yourself a hole and climb in," he said.
After 17 years in business, Connolly closed his original restaurant on Milton Road to focus all of his energy on the Route 66 location and spend more of his time in the kitchen rather than managing.
Demolition killed two birds with one stone: It eliminated a haven for transients often linked to crime in the area, and it abated an environmental threat -- asbestos -- to the poverty-level families living in the motel, Connolly said.
"Those aren't a safe environment for anybody to live in," he said.
MOTEL HEYDAY
Just after World War II, traffic along Route 66 surged as gasoline became available and more people were traveling across the country by car, said Richard Mangum, a local historian. With many of the travelers passing through during summer vacation, Flagstaff became an oasis between the desert heat of Los Angeles and Albuquerque.
The marketplace for motels emerged.
"Today, if you wanted to build a motel, you'd have to have enough rooms to make it worth your while," Mangum said. It's essentially impossible to do that without a franchise and corporate backing.
But in the hey-day of Route 66, franchising had yet to become an industry standard, and starting a "mom-and-pop" motel with six to eight units was easily done, he said.
"An individual could play the game, and a lot of them did. (Hotels were) modestly built by people with modest means," Mangum said. "Things like asbestos -- nobody paid any attention to that. It was quite a lot easier to build one."
The trick to turning these small motels into a financial success, he said, was exterior aesthetics. Even if the rooms weren't ideal, a beautiful paint job would attract a full house in the tight market.
"For the traveler it meant you didn't know what you were getting," Mangum said. "Travel was much more of an adventure."
Many owners discovered a lucrative family business, adding rooms as they became more established.
Others were a little more shady, according to Mangum. Those owners would save a couple rooms until about 10 p.m., then turn on the vacancy sign and charge the desperate and unprepared room-seekers double rates.
With bumper-to-bumper traffic through downtown Flagstaff well into the night, it was a trick they could get away with, he said.
"In the middle of the day, it was so noisy you couldn't talk to somebody," said Mangum, a Flagstaff native. "Everybody came right through town. You couldn't get across the street."
But in the late 1950s the market began to change and more travelers started to use franchise motels, he said. Then, in 1968, traffic was diverted from the lengthy strip to the newly built Interstate 40, which skirted town and left the small, less-established motels unseen and unused.
The heyday of Route 66 was over, and the motels that could survive became merely a stopping point for less affluent travelers seeking the cheapest rate.
THE NEW ROUTE 66
Paradise Motel isn't the first historic motel Connolly has taken down. Removing the Alpine Motel in 2002 kicked off his renovation of Salsa Brava and enabled him to add 2,000 square feet to the restaurant, which increased the seating from about 30 to more than 150.
Circle Q Western Wear owner Bob Childers also purchased and demolished Snowbowl Motel in January, though no one at the store would discuss future business propositions on the property.
In place of the Paradise Motel, Connolly plans to build a "mercado-style plaza" -- a 5,000 square-foot building that will take on the same architectural style as Salsa Brava -- intended for professional offices.
The addition will enhance the overall aesthetics of the area and draw more attention to his business, he said. In a town with more than a dozen Mexican restaurants, the Irish man from Phoenix needs to do what he can to remain competitive.
"I really sensed the need to make big changes," he said. "The Mexican food market in this town is so competitive now, I really felt the need to make this store as good as it can be."
Eliminating those motels has made his store more visible, Connolly said, though he's unsure if it will result in a large revenue increase overall. At least not at first.
To demolish one of these old motels, 200 building samples are taken first to test for asbestos. Then an abatement company must properly remove it before the building can be razed.
Purchasing a motel to level it is such a risky investment, and his financial adviser actually told him that low-interest certificates of deposit would generate a better return, Connolly said.
"It's going to be a break-even venture for many years," he said. "It's a lot of $5 burritos."
Purchasing Paradise Hotel in April cost Connolly $285,000, according to the Coconino County assessor's office. Asbestos testing, abatement and demolition on one of these motels could cost an additional $95,000 to $100,000 or more, according to Southwest Hazard Control, an abatement company in Tempe that handled Snowbowl Motel.
CITY COOPERATION, BUT NO TAX CREDITS
It's a large time and financial commitment, Connolly said, and cooperation from the city of Flagstaff was "two-fold."
"At the demolition phase they were just grateful," he said. But Connolly was unable to secure any tax benefits he felt he was due for the community improvement and infrastructure relief by removing the 40 toilets that were part of the motel, he said.
"I really believe we made a difference over here. I don't know if it's an asset to the city or not, but from what I saw in this motel, the old lady's time had come to be knocked down," Connolly said.
The city has not set any precedents for tax credits on demolition work and that hotel is "not in a current redevelopment area," said Community Investment Director Michael Kerski.
"We don't give credits for tearing things down," he said.
In addition, the goal with Route 66 is to "preserve it in a different state, whether renovated or enhanced," he said.
While tearing down old motels may not produce large financial returns, the benefit to the community is encouraging, Connolly said.
"To bring them up to code would not be cost-efficient. But it's not about dollars and cents. It's really about making a difference in this community," he said. "I think you're going to see a complete revitalization of mid-town. It looks a lot better over here."
~Rachel Peterson, Arizona Daily Sun
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